In short
The pre-fall creation mandate to bring a good but wild earth into fruitful order. Stewardship, not extraction.
The full definition
Kabash means to subdue, to bring something under order and make it serviceable. In Bereshit (Genesis) 1:28 it is given alongside radah to the man and the woman together, before the fall, as the work of taking a good but unformed creation and bringing it into fruitful order. This is gardening, not strip-mining. Read through post-fall appetite, kabash has been twisted into a license to consume the earth as raw material for human use. The original sense is the care a steward owes what the Owner called good. The mandate did not change after the fall. The reading did.
Key passages
- Genesis 1:28